Have you had a great idea at work? Your company might be better off if you didn’t take credit for it, new research shows.
Employees who are quick to claim an idea as their own when presenting it to co-workers for feedback aren’t giving their concept the best chance to reach its full potential, according to a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
The study’s authors found that when workers take credit for coming up with an idea, their colleagues aren’t as willing to provide creative and constructive feedback. This type of “territorial marking” makes others feel like they don’t have much of a stake in the concept’s outcome, so they lose motivation to provide input, the research found.